Connecticut western news., 1887-12-28
CHINESE FARMERS.

A Glance at the Agriculturists
 of the Flowery Kingdom.
 The Country's Craveyards a Bar to It's Progress.
 IT CT, arc reasons to believe that the trade os this country with China will soon grow to majestic dimensions. Of the seven million, five hundred thousand dollars of exports to China in the last tiscal year, nearly five million dollars worth was of distinctively agricultural fproducts, and of their manufacture. Of the remainder, tho largest share was mineral oil The Commission in the United States this year is charged cs- pccially with tho promotion of banks, telegraph and telephone lines, behind which looms up the extension of canals, the introduction of railroads, of agri- cultural machinery, and of such of our products as China needs, and she has need of m,ny. Her home products, aside from tea, are wheat, mill let, garden vegetables, rice, poor apples, peaches, grapes, etc. Tho food of China ls mostly vege- tables and fl fish-the extensive sea coast, rivers and canals supplying the latter. Beef is almost unknown, except in the foreign settlements, and berries are rare; mutton is plentiful; pork, poultry and eggs are abundant. Domestic ani- mals, except dogs, are not common. Horses are scarce, mules are numerous, cattle in small numbers, but flocks and herds are unknown. Two or three ami malls comprise au average barn garrison. The camel is a familiar beast of burden. The Chinese farmers live in cities, towns and villages, and cultivate the adjacent country, where there is no subdivision by fences, hedge rows or walls. There Is au excess of flat country, which is subject to frightful inundations from the swollen rivers. Famines are n ot rare, and few years ago1o, 900, 900 people died from starvation in two provinces alone, while abundance prevailed in the rest of the empire. Farming tools are of the rudest. No vehicles have springs. They are made on models found in a text book recognized in tho schools for some thousands of years. The people dress in cotton, and live and work after national habit is opposed to change, and so the nation of three hundred million souls goes on in ''the good old way" The Uuited States broke the spell of centuries in Japan. It may yet do the same for China. We go for trade and progress, other nations for trad, and conquest and colonies, and the Chinese leaders are beginning to understand this.
 It has been sad that the pious care of the Chinese for the graves of their an- ccstors prohibits the construction of railroads, telegraph lines, etc. Ances- tral worship is indeed an accepted form of religion, and of immortal antiquity. But it is kept alive only by the strong hand of the imperial government. The land is not one graveyard. The graves are all near the cities and surround them in rows of tumuli, or detached mounds, looking like hay cocks. If properly approached, Chinaman will, if duly compensated, move his family burial place and set it up elsewhere. | Near Tientsin is a mile race track within its bounds are several thousand graves, without, as many ;snd many have been removed to make room for the track and buildings. On these mounds the Chinese stand to get good view of the race and other sports. Here is proof that this "cult" for the departed is not fxel and immovable belief. There are twenty eight miles of railroad, leading from a coal mine in the northern part of the Empire. The mines and the road are worked, in spite of national pre- judlce a nd the ancestral superstition. There is little. wood in China, and the fuel most in use is the rakings of the dried grass, leaves, reeds, etc., which arc kept for winter use. In both town and country--in the towns rather, for there is no country lifc-the struggle for existence is severe and constant. A modcrnizcd agricul- ture, and the introduction of railroad and wagon service, would rejuvenate the decaying "Flowery Laud," which is bald misnomer for land destitute of flowers and shrubs, treeless, and with dull herbage that contrasts strongly with the culture that has made the American continent to "blossom like the rosc," and to be rich in various products that its enterprise bears to all parts of the civilized world. d.-[ American Agriculturist.
 | Electric Railways.